Chapter 388 Battle of Crossing the River 2

At 7 a.m. on the 8th, more than an hour had passed since the Feng army officially crossed the river. Some of the soldiers of the 33rd Regiment of the 9th Division who rowed across the river have successfully landed on the beach. At this time, they are attacking the inland of the beach under the leadership of officers at all levels.

However, under the influence of crossing the river, there was a certain confusion in the command of the 33rd Regiment. There was a situation where officers could not find their soldiers and soldiers could not find their direct officers. As a last resort, many soldiers were directly commanded by nearby officers and then launched an attack on the Anhui army inland.

Behind them, the river still floated the bodies of many fallen soldiers, and the blood dyed the original muddy yellow river red.

"What's going on? It's just a camp on the opposite side. Can't you rush up? Fang Qingkun's military uniform was still shining at this time. Except for the slightly mud in the long military boots under his feet, he was not covered with mud and water like other Feng soldiers.

"The Anhui army on the opposite side resisted quite tenaciously, and the first battalion launched two attacks without forcing them to retreat!" The adjutant beside him hurriedly explained.

Fang Qingkun frowned slightly and then said, "Let the 80mm mortars of the regiment go up to help, and be sure to repel them within half an hour, otherwise the safety of the subsequent crossing of the river will not be guaranteed!"

Although the infantry battalion of the 7th Division of the Anhui Army and Liangjiang Army on the beach is not large, its two heavy machine guns pose a great threat to the open and unobstructed Feng army crossing the river.

Although the Anhui army did not deploy too many main forces here, but only deployed a battalion for alert and preparedness, this infantry battalion also built thick fortifications before, especially the two machine gun fortresses were so strong that the Feng army repeatedly used mortars to knock down these two. The firepower of the machine gun has been returned to no success.

However, don't you fight if it's difficult?

Absolutely not. Anyway, Fang Qingkun needs to take this beachhead position of the Anhui army, which is his responsibility as the first commander of the river crossing force.

He clearly remembers what Lin Yongquan said to him before leaving at dawn today: "Anqing's trip is the first battle of our army to cross the river, shouldering the heavy responsibility of opening the way for our army and ensuring the smooth crossing of the river by the main force. I hope that in the near future, I can personally ask the president for Anqing!"

The first battle of crossing the river is not only Lin Yongquan's trust in him, but also his promise!

He knew very well that before the war, all the troops of the Fourth Army were fighting for the opportunity to fight for the first battle, because in the eyes of the confident generals of the Feng army, this battle across the river was bound to be able to win a complete victory, and the first fighter inadvertently won the most glorious merits.

Whether it was the 9th Division, the 14th Division or the 1st Mixed Brigade, they all competed for the opportunity to fight in the first battle in front of Meng Enyuan. In the end, the old 9th Division won this important task, and the 33rd Regiment under the 9th Division won the first batch of tasks to cross the river.

When Lin Yongquan handed over the battle plan of the 9th Division to Meng Enyuan, Meng Enyuan saw Fang Qingkun's name and smiled: "Fang Anqing is still a capable young man, and he will not let us down this time!"

Meng Enyuan was quite appreciative of Qingkun before last year. In the battle of Beijing, he seconded Fang Qingkun, then the third section chief of the Operations Department, to the First Army as a combat staff officer. After the end of the Beijing battle, the military affairs office officially transferred Fang Qingkun to the First Army and served as the first. The combat staff of the first army, and then transferred to the 33rd Regiment of the 9th Division as the commander of the 1st Battalion. After the Zhengzhou Campaign, he was promoted to lieutenant colonel and transferred to the 17th Brigade as the chief of staff. At that time, the commander of the 17th Brigade was Yang Deming.

The two people cooperated quite well, and Fang Qingkun also benefited a lot during his tenure. After the Jiangbei Campaign, Yang Deming was transferred to the 14th Division as the division commander. Pan Luanqing, the former commander of the 33rd Regiment and a 1906 refresher, was promoted to the rank of major general and took over the position of brigade commander of the 17th Brigade, and Fang Qingkun took over. He served as the commander of the 33rd Regiment and was promoted to the rank of colonel.

In less than a year, Fang Qingkun jumped two levels and was promoted from major to colonel at the beginning of his return to China. Although this speed is not too fast for Fengjun in the past year. For example, his immediate superior Pan Luanqing was just a major battalion commander at the beginning of his entry last year, but at the same time, he was He jumped three levels in a row and successfully crossed the threshold that many school officers could not cross in their lifetime, and successfully became a major general.

However, Fang Qingkun's promotion speed is not slow. You have to know that he returned to China at the end of 1906 and has only been more than a year since he really joined the Feng army. Moreover, although he is also a German student, he is only an ordinary non-commissioned officer in Germany, not a Berlin military cadet like Yang Deming. Many German students and Japanese students like him have only returned to China as captains, and most of them are still at the level of majors and lieutenant colonels, and not many of them can be promoted to colonels now.

He was able to squeeze through the competition of many people, and taking office as the head of the 33rd Regiment is inseparable from the support of Meng Enyuan and Yang Deming. Before leaving office, Yang Deming wrote him a letter of recommendation, and Meng Enyuan also revealed his mouth to the office, saying that Fang Qingkun is quite talented enough to be qualified for any one. The heavy responsibility of the regiment made him defeat several senior officers, two of whom were junior colonels from advanced students and won the position of the 33rd Regiment.

At present, in the Feng army, a considerable part of the positions of middle-level officers, especially the battalion commander and regimental commander, are held by advanced students. Think about it, the lowest number of trainees who have just graduated is also a major. In most cases, the positions assigned after graduation are battalion commanders, which is enough to occupy most of the battalion commanders. And the commander's words are also full of a large number of trainees, which not only have the quality of the trainees themselves than ordinary officers, but also according to Zhao Dongyun's intentional or unintentional hints that they are very inclined to trainees when promoting officers.

It is not easy to grab the position of the 33rd Regiment from the trainees.

However, Meng Enyuan's importance and Lin Yongquan's trust have brought great pressure to Fang Qingkun. He can't imagine what will happen if he makes a mistake when crossing the river.

So failure is unacceptable!

If one battalion is not good, then two battalions and three mortars are not enough, then there are only five, six or even more. In short, he must defeat the current enemy in the shortest time, and then advance inland to expand the strategic depth for the beachhead position crossing the river, so as to avoid the subsequent crossing force being hit by the enemy's machine gun fire. Strike and subsequent artillery strikes.

Although the infantry battalion of the 7th Division of Liangjiang was well equipped and trained, it also remained calm at the beginning of the battle. Instead of turning around and fleeing like most provincial troops, it adopted the tactics of resolute resistance.

There is no doubt that their stubborn resistance caused great trouble to the first batch of troops crossing the river, that is, the 33rd Regiment commanded by Fang Qingkun, and even threatened the smooth progress of the subsequent crossing of the river.

However, even if their performance is not bad, there is only one battalion, and the first batch of troops crossing the river of the Feng army has a full 33rd regiment, which is far better than their infantry battalion in terms of strength and firepower.

When Fang Qingkun gathered two battalions of the 33rd Regiment and six 80mm mortars launched an offensive against the infantry battalion of the 7th Division of the Two Rivers, the infantry battalion finally collapsed like all the troops as the shells continued to fall and casualties expected to continue to increase.

After nearly 100 people were killed and injured, this infantry battalion with more than 800 troops finally collapsed in a new round of charge of the 33rd Regiment. No matter how the Anhui officers shouted, they could not stop those Anhui soldiers from turning around and fleeing!

In fact, the performance in an Anhui infantry battalion has been quite good. Although they only resisted for about an hour and a half, they have successfully killed and injured more than 200 people of the Feng army crossing the river, with less than 100 casualties, and the casualty ratio is about 2 to one. This should be regarded as many battles between the Feng and Anhui armies. For the first time, there has been such a big gap.

This is replaced by any Anhui army, and it is difficult for Duan Qirui's fourth division to achieve similar results.

However, their tenacious resistance effect is not great. It's just an infantry battalion. How can they stop the Fourth Army from crossing the river? The first batch of the 33rd Regiment crossing the river alone is enough to clean them up, so they collapsed after nearly 100 casualties.

The Anhui army of this battalion collapsed, abandoned their position and fled directly to the southwest, but Fang Qingkun's expression did not show joy.

Because he knew that this was just the beginning. His task was not only to repel this small infantry battalion. His main task was to advance inland, establish a solid beach position, and block the subsequent counterattack of the Anhui army to cover the crossing of the river.

"Directly to the southwest!" Fang Qingkun quickly issued new instructions: "The first battalion advanced along the river, capturing the line of Xuejiaao and defending it. The second battalion attacked the line of Kehuaguo Mountain in the east and defended it. The second battalion followed me to Yushan Lake to chase and eliminate the enemy's remnants!"

After Fang Qingkun's order was issued, the officers and soldiers of the 33rd Regiment did not rest, but slightly rectified on the beach, so that the troops slightly restored the command system, and the battalions quickly advanced to the southwest. They wanted to block the 7th Division of the Liangjiang Army from advancing east in the direction of Dangtu to cover the follow-up part. The team crossed the river smoothly!"

When Fang Qingkun commanded the troops to advance deep and expand the beach position, Meng Enyuan on the north coast also said to a tall colonel with an eight-character beard: "Chief Fang, the 33rd Regiment on the front line has consolidated the position of the beach head, and no enemy deployment has been found on Xiaohuangzhou. Your engineering regiment can The pontoon bridge has been successfully set up!"

This commander is the commander-in-chief of the task force specially established for the Hezhou river crossing plan this time. The engineering regiment has transferred almost most of the professional boat and bridge troops in the Feng army. Although it is limited by the contemporary technical level and their level of setting up pontoon bridges is limited, but At least this is the only professional boat bridge force that the Feng army can take out, and whether the main force of the Fourth Army can successfully cross the river depends on whether the task force can successfully set up the pontoon bridge in a short time.

Only when the pontoon bridge is built can the main forces of the Fourth Army, including the 18th Brigade, the 14th Division and the 1st Mixed Brigade of the 9th Division waiting to cross the river, and more importantly, a large number of artillery troops can cross the river.

And whether the artillery and the weight can cross the river smoothly or not is the key to the Fourth Army's battle of crossing the river, not just sending thousands of people across the river with wooden boats and bamboo platoons. To be precise, the task of the first batch of the 33rd Regiment to cross the river and the 34th Regiment that followed the river by boat is to cover and protect the boat. The bridge troops were able to successfully build the pontoon bridge.

If the pontoon bridge cannot be built and the follow-up troops can't cross the river, the 17th brigade crossing the river first will be pushed back into the Yangtze River because of the lack of ammunition!